World's oldest blogger dies in Sydney

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-14 11:02

CANBERRA -- The Australian woman renowned as the world's oldest internet blogger has passed away aged 108, her great grandson Darren Stone, of Brisbane, announced Sunday night.

This undated file photo shows Olive Riley (L), the world's oldest internet blogger, and her great grandson Darren Stone. [Agencies]

Olive Riley died in a nursing home Saturday evening on New South Wales's central coast, Darren Stone said.

She will be mourned by family and an international readership in the thousands.

"She had people communicating with her from as far away as Russia and America on a continual basis, not just once in a while," Australian Associated Press quoted Stone as saying.

Olive had posted more than 70 entries on her blog - or as she jokingly labeled it, her "blob" - since February last year.

The ardent Sydney Swans AFL fan shared her day-to-day musings and her life's experiences raising three children on her own, living through two world wars and the Depression, her work as a station cook in rural Queensland and as an egg sorter and barmaid in Sydney.

In her final post, dated June 26, an increasingly frail Olive noted she couldn't "shake off that bad cough".

She also wrote: "read a whole swag of email messages and comments from my internet friends today, and I was so pleased to hear from you. Thank you, one and all."

She was born on October 20, 1899 and will be buried later this week on the NSW Central Coast.

Olive Riley's blog: http://www.allaboutolive.com.au or http://worldsoldestblogger.blogspot.com.